[url]http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=29324[/url]

Drama and death at 30,000 feet over the Republic of Congo.
More than 100 passengers are feared dead after a plane door opens in mid-flight.

Airport officials in Kinshasa say the rear door of a Russian-built cargo plane burst open as the aircraft was carrying police officials and their families across Congo. 129 passengers were sucked out to their deaths.

After the accident occurred some 45 minutes into the flight, the pilots managed to turn back and land the plane in Kinshasa, according to defense minister Irung Awan.

The plane, a privately owned Ilyushin 76, had apparently been chartered to transport Congolese police and their families from Kinshasa to the southeastern city of Lubumbashi, a diamond mining city.



Man, thats going to leave a mark.

If they get over that they are going to a hell of a police force. 30,000' freefall without a net even. So you think Airborn Basic was tough? HA!

ouch....one HELL of a mark, for sure....

Man that sucks.

fortunatly, at 30,k ft a person will probably back out within seconds.  those people probably were out for the ride down.

PS. always wear your seat belt while in your seat.

Umm, no.

Congo has no police forces. They do, however, have military forces.

The same ones that see Genocide as the National Passtime.

I say fuck'em.

Good riddance.

Dont some of the South American Countries use this same thing as a way of political change?
Maybe this was no accident....

Not really ,you would black out at 30 thousand feet but once you are under 10 thousand you would regain consciousness and be awake for the last 10 K foot drop,that would suck waking up to that!

Note the term "cargo plane" instead of "passenger plane".  There probably any seats or seat belts.  When you get a pressure differential of 4 PSI over an area of 3' x 6', you are talking considerable suction force (2500 punds across the area).  Not surprising that many of the passengers got sucked out.

I HATE flying.

I always wear my seatbelt just incase a door blows out.

I thought this was going to be about a hooker on a plane

[lol] Baddog!

Thats one way of cutting the payroll.

It would take a LONG time to hit the ground!

Once you reach max velocity it would be about 3 minutes give or take a second or two.
You would fall about 11,000 feet per minute,damn thats gonna be a long scream.

Kinda what I was thinking.

As mentioned earlier, I wonder if the victims weren't on the losing side of some kind of internal political struggle...

"Sorry, your attempted coup failed, but since we're nice guys, we're sending you on an all-expenses-paid vacation trip..."

Technically, since there was more pressure inside the plane, weren't they [i]blown[/i] out?

Okay, then that blows.

So you're saying, "Oops!  Wrong button!  Oh well.  Heading home! [:D]"?

I very much doubt that these folks would black out from the lack of oxygen.

I would take a minute or so for anyone to lose conciousness at that altitude.  At 20,000 feet, most people would be able to survive far longer.  At 10,000 everybody who blacked out would be reviving.

It ain't the fall, it's that sudden stop.  [}:)]

"This is your Captain speaking, we've reached our crusing altitude of 30,000 feet and I've turned off the seat belt sign so you may move about the cabin." "Also, if you look out the right side you will see the Congo river and if you look out the back ... wait you can't see out the back unless I ...  hold on a minute while I filp this switch ..."

Vrrrr ... sssuuuccckkk ... "AAAGGHHH [wow] AAAGGGHHHHH" [wave]


Later,

A stewardess was also sucked out to her death out of a Hawaiian Air Lines plane a few years ago. I don't remmber the exact details but somehow a door open.

Oh how I love telling people they are wrong. Here is a little something I picked up while going through one of my ground schools.

Time of useful consciousness without oxygen
                                   
Altitude (ft)            

40,000                   15 seconds
35,000                   20 seconds
30,000                   30 seconds
28,000                    1 minute
26,000                    2 minutes
24,000                    3 minutes
22,000                    6 minutes
20,000                   10 minutes
15,000                   Indefinite  

OK, how about a different spin on this...What would be the best thing to do in this situation? My first thought is to roll over onto my back, close my eyes and wait for the end. Waddya think?


ByteTheBullet  (-:

I was going to say the same thing.

"What's the matter, Airborne?  didn't keep your chin to your chest?"

I remember that.  I believe it was stress fractures around a cargo door in the bottom of the plane, caused by repeated pressurization and depressurization.  The skin of the plane failed and the door ripped off, exposing part of the passenger cabin.

A Hawaian airlines 737 developed stres cracks int he upper, forwaord fuselage and a 10-15ft section of the top of the plane peeled off.  It sucked a stewardess or two out and a few passengers who were not seat belted in.
From a website:  The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression and lost approximately 1/3 of its roof while cruising at FL190. Pre-existing fatigue cracks in the fuselage from numerous takeoffs and landings. One flight attendant was ejected from the aircraft, which landed safely at OGG.

For video:  

http://www.airsafetyonline.com/multimedia/videos.shtml

For photos and descriptions:
http://www.aloha.com/~lawson/aviation.htm

http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/280488.htm


How do you make these damned hyperlinks active?

BTW:  Carrgo planes generally have seatbelts and this cargo plane may have had regular seats instead of the side by side seating.  You can load pallets w/ normal seats on planes that usually carry palletized cargo.

There was an almost identical incident to this in about 1975 involving a Lockheed C-5 loaded with (IIRC) Cambodian refugees. Well over 100 died, but there were survivors. In the present incident, I understand that all but the flight crew were killed. I believe that in both cases, hydraulic failure was the cause.

In the Aloha incident, only 1 flight attendant was lost, however, several other flight attendants and passengers who were not belted in were able to avoid being pulled out of the plane.

The Aloha incident was recounted in a 1990 made-for-TV movie starring Wayne Rogers and Connie Sellica. The movie was the only thing that sucked more than the accident itself.

Couldn't you just aim for a lake and then "flair" at the last second?  

Now, THATS funny!!  [lol]

Right.....but they were falling.  
So within the 30 second blackout window (for 30,000 ft) they would have been at ~25,000 ft.  The blackout window for that is about 2 1/2 minutes.  In 2 1/2 minutes they would have been past 15,000 ft.


[/quote]

Oh how I love telling people they are wrong. Here is a little something I picked up while going through one of my ground schools.

Time of useful consciousness without oxygen
                                   
Altitude (ft)            

40,000                   15 seconds
35,000                   20 seconds
30,000                   30 seconds
28,000                    1 minute
26,000                    2 minutes
24,000                    3 minutes
22,000                    6 minutes
20,000                   10 minutes
15,000                   Indefinite  [/quote]

so, how good is your PLF ???????

hmmmmmmm? [}:D]

So I was only off by 30 seconds?  Day-um shut me TF up!

[rolleyes]

Trippletap nailed my point though.  Don't be so smug next time, and you will look like less of an idiot.

I wouldn't lay on my back, how cowardly!  

I'd do flips, twists, flair and try to aim for something polished!

Do you know anything about frefall?  Do you know what body position is required to stay on your back?  Most people dont.  

I have been flying skydivers for years so i know the positions, but i dont think i would have the presence of mind to do it right.

Ben, The Emu

Feet and knee together ok ok ok remember roll roll on to a hip.

I dont think thats going help much.

NO.    Again, most people dont know the body mecanics of frefall.   like i said ive been around skydiving for a while.  and i dont know how to "track" (move laterally across the ground)  And "flair"?  termial  velocity for an average person is around 130 mph (vertical)  so at the last minute you make yourself as big as possible and slow down to what? 100?  And a lake would not be the best choice for a landing area.  water has surface tension. ever do a belly flop in a pool?

People have survived falling from planes but it is VERY rare. and usaully its because they have a partally open chute.  

Ben, The Emu

The fatigue was not from take-offs and landings.  It was from pressureization cycles. Imagine blowing up a ballon and letting the air back out hundreds of times.  Hawaian airlines had this problem because they do many, many, many short hops between the islands.  Thier cycle to total time ratio was(and probably still is)  higher than any other airline.


Take-offs and landing are not a big deal.  Flying skydivers i make a landing every 28 minutes.  when i was crop dusting it varied but the average was about 35 minutes.  A Cessna 152 doing training might make 10 landings in an hour.  lands and take-offs wear on tires and brakes, but they dont cause catastrofic failures like in the hawian airlines incident.

Ben, The Emu

Soft ground is your best bet. At that speed water surfaces are much like cement.

Only 10 min at 20K ft? Climbers go that high without bottled O2. Some have climbed Everest (almost 30K ft) without O2.

Over two weeks. At that slow rate you do adjust. You are required to spend time aclimating at the various base camps strung out along the mountain side.

According to the latest National Geographic that by the time Hillary and Norgay reached the summit of Everest they had actually climed the mountian on supply runs and recconassance missions the equivilant of three and a half times. Slowly working their way up over two months.

You can make links active by putting [] (left and right brackets) with the letters URL in the middle at the beginning of the address, and the []with the  /url inside at the end.

I always wear my seat belt when I fly even though it is somewhat uncomfortable. A few years ago, when I used to commute to Dallas TX from L.A., we hit some turbulence over New Mexico, the plane dropped something like 200 feet. Scarced the $hit out me.

There was a case in Russia of a stew in a plane that broke up in mid air living, but she landed in snow....

On 26 January 1972, a JAT DC-9 en route from Copenhagen to Zagreb and Belgrade exploded 33,000 feet over Srbska-Kamenice in Czechoslovakia. Ustashe, otherwise known as the Croatian National Movement, later admitted their responsibility for the bombing that should have killed all 29 passengers and crew. Miraculously, however, there was a survivor. The body of flight attendant, Vesna Vulovic, was recovered from the wreckage. Thirty years on, Philip Baum travelled to Belgrade to hear her story.

...........

Nobody knows how Vesna survived the accident. Some have said it was due to the fuselage hitting the side of the hill at an angle rather than hitting the ground directly. In practical terms the figure of 33,000 feet somewhat irrelevant because, according to the Guinness Book of Records it is estimated that the human body reaches 99% of its low-level term velocity after failing 573m 1,880 feet which takes 13-14 seconds. This is 117-125mph at normal atmospheric pressure and in a random posture.

Others have survived falls above 1,880 feet. In 1942 a Russian bailed out of his Ilyushinn at 22,000 feet when being attacked by German Messerschmidts. He landed in thick snow and mode a speedy recovery. in another war story RAF gunner Nick Alkemande fell 18,000 feet and sprained a leg. The branches of pine trees and the snow on the ground saved him.



[img]http://www.avsec.com/editorial/graphics/vesna1.jpg[/img]

[url]http://www.avsec.com/editorial/vesna.htm[url/]

Wonder what sort of pattern 129 people would make from 30k ft.[devil]

Shure would suck to be herding some goats around minding your own business and get clobbered by an african falling out of the sky !!! [shock]

Wreckage Riders Another group of survivors are ones who stayed with the wreckage of a destroyed aircraft. This group includes the most famous survivor, Vesna Vulovic, who fell from the greatest height of any person whose story is recorded on this site.  

Notable Wreckage Riders

Vesna Vulovic was a stewardess on a Yugoslav DC 9 jet airliner that blew up in January of 1972 (probably as the result of a terrorist bomb). She fell more than 33,000 feet in the wreckage of the plane, which hit a snow-covered slope. The only survivor, she was badly injured and was paralyzed from the waist down, but later recovered and now can walk.

Larissa Sovitskaya:  Larissa Sovitskaya was returning with her husband from their honeymoon trip in August of 1981 when the Antonov-24 turbo-prop plane they were traveling in collided with a Soviet Tupolev-16 bomber. Sovitskaya fell 18,000 feet in the mangled wreckage of the plane. Found in a remote part of eastern Russia after a three-day search, Soviskaya eventually recovered but still suffers from back pain and headaches.

Juliane Koepcke:   On Christmas Eve of 1971, a commercial airliner over Peru was struck by lightning and broke up during a storm. A teenage girl, Juliane Koepcke, fell two miles, still strapped in her seat. She survived, but her ordeal had just begun. Despite a broken collarbone and other injuries, she walked for 11 days through the Amazon rain forest and finally found help. Her story has been the subject of two films, the most recent being a Werner Herzog documentary called Wings of Hope.

Gerald Duval and John Wells:   Duval and Wells were gunners on a B-24 bomber of the U.S. 459th Bomb Group. On a mission to Steyr, Austria in April of 1944, their B-24 was attacked by German fighters and badly damaged. With the pilot dead and several other crewmembers dead or injured, the plane went into a spin. Duval and Wells were pinned down by centrifugal force and were unable to reach their parachutes to escape. The plane fell 24,000 feet and crashed. Duval and Wells were rescued from the wreckage by a crewmember who had parachuted from the plane. Though badly injured, both survived. The incident is described in Duval's book "Wings and Barbed Wire," which is available through 1stbooks.com.

Edmund Shibble:   Shibble was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 bomber of the 447th Bomb Group. On a mission to Koblenz, a bomber in the formation above was hit and it tumbled down, hitting Shibble's B-17 and splitting it in two. The ball turret with Shibble in it remained with the front part of the plane, which plummeted 23,000 feet. His back was broken, but he survived the crash.
 
Joe Jones:   Jones was a tail gunner in a 385th Bomb Group B-17 bomber on a March 1945 bombing raid to Belgium. When it collided with another plane, Jones' bomber broke apart. Trapped in the tail section, Jones awaited his fate, falling 13,500 feet. Pulled unconscious from the wreckage, he woke up a few days later in a British field hospital.  

William Stannard:   William Stannard was a tail gunner in a British Ventura bomber on a mission to Holland in May of 1943. Struck by enemy gunfire, the plane broke into pieces. By some aerodynamic trick of fate, the severed tail section glided to earth and landed on the grounds of a large estate where Stannard was pulled alive from the wreckage.
 
Tatyana Moiseyava and Arina Vinogradova:   In July of 2002 Tatyana Moiseyava and Arina Vinogradova were stewardesses in a Russian II-86 airliner that crashed shortly after take-off at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. The plane reached an altitude of no more than 1,000 feet or so before crashing to the ground. Moiseyava and Vinogradova were the only survivors. Both were seatbelted in the tail section of the plane. A third stewardess seated in the back was killed when she unbuckled her seatbelt to get up and see what was happening.  

Erwin Koszyczarek:   In February of 1945, two B-17 bombers collided over Graz, Austria. The tail gunner of one of the B-17s, S/Sgt. Erwin Koszyczarek, fell 28,000 feet in the severed tail. He emerged unhurt and was taken prisoner.  

Eugene Moran:   On a mission to Bremen, German in November of 1943, tailgunner Eugene Moran's B-17 was hit by enemy fire. S/Sgt Moran couldn't bail out because his parachute was shot full of holes. He rode the tail to the ground where it crashed into some trees. He spent four mounths in a German hospital, but he survived.

Steve Fossett:   Fossett fell 29,000 feet into the Coral Sea when his hot air balloon ruptured. He fell with the remains of the balloon at a speed that he estimated to be around 45 miles per hour. He was rescued uninjured.  

The Free Fallers are the most amazing stories of all. They had no parachute, not even one that failed. They didn't cling to aircraft wreckage. They just fell. All were World War II airmen. Lt. I.M. Chisov, Sgt. Alan Magee, and Sgt. Nicholas Alkemade all fell more than 20,000 feet.  

Notable Free Fallers

I.M. Chisov:   Lt. I.M. Chisov was a Russian airman whose Ilyushin IL-4 bomber was attacked by German fighters in January of 1942. Falling nearly 22,000 feet, he hit the edge of a snow-covered ravine and rolled to the bottom. He was badly hurt but survived.

Alan Magee:   Alan Magee, a gunner on a B-17 with the 303rd Bomb Group of the U.S. 8th Air Force, was on a mission to St. Nazaire, France in January of 1943, when his bomber was set aflame by enemy fire. He was thrown from the plane before he had a chance to put on his parachute. He fell 20,000 feet and crashed through the skylight of the St. Nazaire train station. His arm was badly injured, but he recovered from that and other injuries.
 
Nicholas Alkemade:   In March of 1944, Nicholas Alkemade was the tail gunner in a British Lancaster bomber on a night mission to Berlin when his plane was attacked by German fighters. When the captain ordered the crew to bail out, Alkemade looked back into the plane and discovered that his parachute was in flames. He chose to jump without a parachute rather than to stay in the burning plane. He fell 18,000 feet, landing in trees, underbrush, and drifted snow. He twisted his knee and had some cuts, but was otherwise alright.  

[url]http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffresearch.html[/url]

Blown, Sucked, I'D HIT IT!!    [banana]

Having worked cargo door/ramp mech/hyd systems ,a cargo door should not blow open or fall open if hyd pressure is lost. I don't think the russians are that stupid in aircraft design ! IMOP one of the passenger/UGBHB's started pushing buttons and pullin levers

Sorry I could not help it...